Climate Point: Birdwatchers take note
Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to climate, energy and the environment. I’m senior environment reporter Janet Wilson from Palm Springs, California.
Spring has sprung, and across the U.S. that typically means lots more birds warbling, whooshing, chirruping and strutting their stuff to prospective mates (and emitting predawn, blood-curdling screeches, if like me, you live near a neighbor's rooster).
But climate change is impacting avian species in big ways, as USA Today’s Doyle Rice reports. Shrinking bodies but longer wingspans were documented in new research from two very different sources: live captures in the Amazon and less fortunate birds that collided with buildings in Chicago. Scientists think birds' body size may be evolving rapidly to be smaller to hold less heat as temperatures rise.
Who’s there? Along Lake Superior in northern Michigan, scientists are working through the night to solve a feathered mystery: what or who is affecting the owls? As Ryan Graza with the Detroit Free Press writes, a pair of researchers, armed with birdsong and rock and roll tapes, are setting North American records, catching numbers of owls not previously thought possible. But one said: “Boreal, Great Gray and Northern Hawk owls are some of the most sought-after birds in North America and their numbers here are just crashing. We don’t know why. It’s sad.”
Endangered birds and drilling. To the south, lesser prairie chickens who’ve lost 97% of their habitat might be kicked off the Endangered Species Act list amid a push for increased drilling in the Southwest's Permian Basin, the nation’s largest petroleum-producing basin. The U.S. Senate voted Wednesday to use the Congressional Review Act to reverse the lesser prairie-chicken's listing under the federal act, writes Brandi Addison with the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. The White House indicated President Joe Biden will likely veto the measure if it reaches his desk though.
Danger zones. Wondering where might have the worst climate change impacts in the U.S.? Paste BN's Dinah Voyles Pulver has a great explainer on the states and regions most likely to experience worse floods, droughts, hurricanes, disappearing coastlines and other impacts in the next 30 years, and those that will fare better. Idaho, here we come.
Much hotter. It's also been a record warm year so far for seven states and among the top 10 warmest for another 21 states, NOAA reports, and a late April heat wave across Europe and northern Africa was likely due to climate change.
Read on for more, including stories and graphics on how seniors can join teens in fighting against climate change, billions of dollars in weather related disasters already in 2023, and yes, how sea levels are rising, including in Florida. For stories requiring a subscription, sign up and get access to all eNewspapers throughout the Paste BN network. If someone forwarded you this email and you'd like to receive Climate Point in your inbox for free once a week, sign up here.